A Light Through the Darkness

I did promise an interview...and a prize!

Yesterday, Jill Myles (aka irysangel) had her second book, Succubi Like It Hot, hit the shelves. I'm picking my copy up today, and I might be getting a second one, but right now, I've got an interview with the lovely Jill, and a copy of her first book, SIGNED, for you!

1. Tell me about the book. :D

I hate this question! *shakes fist at you*  Mostly because I never know how to summarize it properly. Let's go with this: Jackie Brighton is a museum docent who wakes up one morning to find that she's a succubus. Now she has to have sex to survive, and has to obey the orders of both a fallen angel and a vampire. And if she thought that made her life difficult, just wait until she promises to retrieve a missing halo...

2. Why succubi?  What drew you to them?

I wanted to play around with the concept of an immortal that was forced to have sex. Succubi seemed the natural conclusion. :)

3. I love how Jackie is so clueless sometimes and how you're
showing how hard a time she's having adjusting.  A lot of writers seem
to have their heroes/heroines get comfortable very quickly with new
abilities.  How hard was it to write her that way?

There's a saying that there's book smart and people smart. Jackie is book smart, but not people smart. It's the case with a lot of scholarly people that I've met - their brains are so attuned to interpreting the page that they've never worked on their social skills or street smarts. Plus, she's having a hard time relating to the new lifestyle, so her 'fight or flight' instincts are in full swing...and she prefers 'flight'.

As for writing her that way, it was actually easier than writing her as an instant badass. Part of the appeal of her story for me was that I wanted to show her struggles to adapt with the new world she was thrust into.

4.You had an interesting journey getting these books published.  Do you mind sharing?

I wouldn't call it 'interesting' so much as slooooooooooooooow. I wrote the first book in 2005. Got an agent in 2006. He shopped it for a year and we had a deal in 2007 for a trade paperback release. Then my editor (who is awesome) suggested that we move it to mass market paperback. I said "OMG YES" and didn't realize at the time that it meant rescheduling my book. To 2010. Cue endless waiting! In the interim, I changed agents twice, wrote book 2, wrote the proposal for book 3, wrote 2 other books, and waited. And waited. But it's here and I could not be happier with my launch. My publisher has been amazing to me..

5. What's your process as a writer - pantser or plotter?

I'm a pantser but I'm slowly trying to change. So that might make me a pantslotter. Or something. But yeah - my instincts kick in and provide me the first scene of the book, and I write that. Then at about chapter 3, the inspiration peters out and I have to start coming up with a loose plot in order to make sure I have enough story to pull through the next 300 pages.

6. What is the best and worst advice you've ever received as a writer?

Oh boy. Best advice would either be to print out and read your book on paper instead of on screen. Worst advice is probably the constant "kill all your adverbs!" because I think that's just a ton of crap. There's a difference between tagging every noun with an adverb (which is bad) and occasionally using an adverb to flavor the sentence (which is fine).

7. Who are the four authors you couldn't do without?  And what do you read in your spare time?

I really love romantic fantasy and paranormal romance, so that's what I read in my spare time (though I do read a little bit of everything on the romance shelves as well). If I had to pick 4 authors...I'd say Meljean Brook, Kresley Cole, Anne McCaffrey, and...the last one changes day to day. It'd be a toss-up between Ilona Andrews and Juliet Marillier today.

8. What's in the pipeline?  I know Succubi Like It Hot is out on the 19th - what's next?

After SUCCUBI LIKE IT HOT, the next book in the Succubus Diaries is not scheduled until January 2011 or so. A long wait, I know! But I'm going to try and do some in-between stories in the meantime. Also in 2011, I'm going to be starting up a second series. This one is a romance series (instead of more urban fantasy like the Succubus Diaries) and will involve humans that work at a paranormal dating agency. The first one is written and it's a lot of fun.

9. What's the one thing you wish you'd known before you started sending your stuff out?

That consistent voice is the most important thing, so play that up.

10.  The big, important question - who's your favorite, Zane or Noah? :D

I'll never tell! (And really, it depends on who I'm writing at the moment anyhow)

And the winner of the SIGNED copy of Gentlemen Prefer Succubi is pickledherring! Congrats - send me an email at vg_ford at yahoo dot com with your address, and I'll send that out tomorrow!
 

Announcing the First Annual Livers for Boobies Charity Drinking Contest!

daveybeauchamp and I will be facing off at RavenCon this year (Saturday, April 26th to be precise) and donating the health of our livers to raise money for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Society. Within the next week, PayPal accounts will set up so that people can start sponsoring us.

Here's the details:

Leading up to RavenCon, you all can sponsor either daveybeauchamp or myself (or both if you like) by donating to the cause.

While we're drinking screwdrivers AT RavenCon that night, we'll be writing a collaborative story. Sponsor one or both of us, and you can suggest something that we might put in the story. We'll have a bucket of the suggestions there, and the judges (we have a celebrity panel of judges, of course) will be pulling out suggestions and giving them to us during the course of the story.

It will be a two-hour contest, and it sounds like we might be making it onto the official programming. And yes, you'll be able to donate at the Con. We'll even have buttons or ribbons for those who do donate!

Celebrity judges so far include Kelly Lockhart, Warren Buff, Tony Ruggerio, Tee Morris and whomever else we can sucker ask to help out.

So come out and help us support the boobies! More details to come!

You might just want to consider entering this contest.

I don't work for either, so I'm not eligible and I have no idea on the specifics, but it looks interesting.

Thanks to watermelontail for the heads up.

Well, went to see TMNT with Donna, Ian (her six-year-old son) and argus7hills. It was a fun movie, not quite what I was expecting, but fun. And had some good lines. Patrick Stewart and Sarah Michelle Gellar are some of the actors lending voices to it - SMG was April, and was really good.

Then we went to dinner with our (hopefully!) future landlords and filled out the rental application. I need to get them a few more pieces of information, but that's all. Just a few phone numbers. Then crossing our fingers and continuing to pack. :)

I'm trying a new method of writing today. I've got a timer I've downloaded from the Net, and I'm doing 15 minutes on, 15 minutes off. It seems to be working. Go me! I need to start getting solid counts in - I feel like I'm slacking off.

I'll be putting in a Partylite order this week - if anyone wants anything, let me know.

And hopefully, argus7hills' car will be ready tomorrow. Please. Goddess. Let it be ready. I need to get my little Petite (yes, mizkit, she's decided she has the soul of a Mustang, and it's the only name she answers to now) back. The Kia gets me around, but she's not mine.

Don't forget two more things:

1) We're still accepting proposals for the new Guide to Writing Fantasy: Magic. Email me at vg-ford@yahoo.com up until 3/31/07.

2) I'm still accepting name proposals for the desktop (male) and the new laptop (female). Winning namers get a copy of NYFH, signed!!

Back to writing now.

kaitiana, who with 188 was closest to my number of 197. Congrats! Email me at vgford @ gmail dot com with your snail mail address, and I'll get that right out to you.

Don't worry, I think I'll be doing this again. :) Thanks for playing, everyone!